Hallelujah
by jacesjellybean
Summary: Alone, Jace Beleren spends most of his nights in a dark tavern near the very place that he lost the love of his life. When Jace meets a dark, wandering stranger, they both find that the one thing that they have missed is one in the same. They vow to find her together, to piece back together their hearts, but a new piece has been created, one that none of them expected.


_A/N: This has been brewing since the summer, and I am contemplating pulling SDS because of the terrible, godawful tumblr environment and how shitty those who were supposed to be close to me are about it. Anyways, enjoy Hallelujah. It's canon-verse but not canon compliant. Post Agents of Artifice._

His hand clenched into a fist, this was one of the very few planes that he had never been to, and one that he ventured to say that he would not grace with his presence for too long, he hated the city, and it seemed that was all this plane was, just a large, overcrowded city. It was far too late to planeswalk anywhere else, he was weary and did not feel up to finding something, killing something, and cooking something. He had a few coins in his pockets from his various dealings and he felt a pull toward the tavern that was a mere ten feet in front of him. He could feel when someone needed his services, but it was usually out in the wilds, and he very rarely helped humans. However, his curse was to walk the multiverse and find those that needed him. He followed his gut into the tavern in what seemed to be a poorer part of the city plane.

When he crossed the threshold. the place was barren except for the barkeep and a young man, he couldn't be older than twenty five. The wanderer knew that looks could be deceiving, he had been frozen and thirty for almost three centuries. He couldn't get a clear view of the man's face, anyways, it was obscured by a hood..

Jace felt the man's gaze on him. He was approximately thirty, had hair pulled into a low ponytail and reeked of the woods. His eyes were strikingly familiar, he had looked into an identical pair for nearly a year. The same eyes that had wept when they had lost Kallist, the same eyes that had rolled in pleasure when he had been inside her, the same eyes that he ached, needed, pined for. It was nothing more than a coincidence, of course, and he needed to stop staring. He didn't want to unnerve him, he was a mountain of a man, nearly seven feet tall. Jace clutched his glass and bit back the knot in his throat that came up whenever he thought of his love.

He wanted nothing more to help her, to free her of her demons, quite literally. He couldn't concentrate on anything else, but he didn't have the backbone to try to reach out to her. She consumed him, she was his first thought and his last one, every single day. His broken heart couldn't love her any harder than it did, and he knew that the wouldn't be whole again until he had her back in his arms.

_If that's what she even wanted, _Jace thought bitterly. Surely she had moved on from him. She was far too beautiful not to have done so, when they were together, Jace was the envy of all the men they came across,.. In a moment of anger and envy, he put too much pressure on the glass, and the force combined with the mana that was flooding through him in his emotional, half drunken state was enough to shatter the glass that he was grasping. A shard of it found its way into his hand, creating a deep laceration that was pouring scarlet.

_At least you're still alive, _Jace thought bitterly. It was far too late to go see Emmara, and he really didn't want to anyway. Her overbearing personality was wearing on him, and he was about to get up and walk out in search of suppiles when the other patron walked over to him. The man grasped his hand in his gargantuan one, and Jace felt the healing magic course through him, the skin stitched itself back together as if he had never been wounded by his own stupidity.

"Thank you," Jace grunted. He was genuinely grateful for his gesture, He shook the man's hand and nodded. "You saved my cloak," Jace added.

"Your magic tastes different than mine, young one," the man said to him. "Powerful, but different. So, how did someone such as yourself end up here?"

Jace just huffed. He didn't know why he felt so compelled to tell him what was going on,. He was obviously some sort of shaman, but Jace knew that not many knew of her.. So he just chuckled the self-depricating laugh of a broken man.

The wanderer looked into the man's eyes. Something clicked inside him, he just knew, like he always did.

"What was her name?" He asked the mage

"Liliana," Jace said. It was the first time he'd spoken her name aloud since that day.

"I had a Liliana once too," the nature mage said. "She was everything to me," he said. He didn't talk about Liliana to anyone, he had no idea what compelled him to say that. It's not like he could know her. She was long since dead. His father , their father, had killed her. There was no doubt in his mind about that.

"Was she the love your life," Jace snorted. That's what his Lili was to him. He would never move on. He would nurse this broken heart to the grave, he just knew it.

"No, romantic love has never appealed to me," he said. Jace assumed he was talking about his mother.

"I had a brother once," Jace said. "We looked so much alike that people thought we were twins. I miss him every single day, but it pales in comparison to how much of my mind and heart that woman takes up," Jace spewed. "I can't think, I can breathe, I can't eat, everything reminds me of her. Even you, funnily enough," he spat. He was almost angry. He had never lost anything he'd ever missed, until her. Until she took over his heart, his mind, his body.

"Did she die?" The wanderer asked.. He was sure that the eternities had brought him in here for a reason. This cloaked sorcerer was surely it. Perhaps he could mend him, through friendship. He knew that he'd be staying in this wretched city plane for far longer than he had anticipated, and he heaved a sigh.

"No," Jace said. "She's not dead. I can feel that," he said. "But she won't come back," Jace said, the knot from earlier making a reappearance. .

The taller man clapped him on the back. Jace felt an uplift to his mood, he knew that the alcohol never did that. The man was meddling with his feelings.

"Thanks but no thanks for that," Jace said.

"You wallowing in self pity won't bring her back," he said. He knew that above anything else, really. He had been so grief stricken that he'd tried to take his own life short of ten times. She had died by his hand of course. If she had just let him die, she would have lived a long, happy life. He wouldn't let the young man do that. These were exactly the things that he tried to stop. He couldn't let the young mage waste his life away.

"She won't come back," Jace shouted, angry.

"If she isn't dead, there is always a chance," the wanderer said, " no matter how small. There is always a chance."

"I love her, but I'm helpless, and being helpless makes me dangerous to both of us. I can't endanger her. I'd rather her be alive and alone than dead and with me," Jace choked out.

"There are ways to help everyone, son, you just have to find it. Love is the most powerful force there is, and it will find its way," he said.

Jace allowed the sob that he'd been fighting all night to wrack his chest. He needed to get this out, it was poisoning him as much as the liquor.

"Let me help you find her," he said. "I can walk through different.."

"You're a planeswalker?" Jace said, stunned. He knew the man's magic was too strong for him to be just a regular mage.

"Yes," he said.

"So was she. And so am I," he said

The wanderer had expected this, he knew that his magic tasted different from those he had experienced. It was his first time meeting someone like him.

"What is your name?" Jace asked.

"Josu," he said. "Josu Vess," he finished. He felt that he had no reason to lie. The young man's motives were pure.

"Impossible," Jace choked out. "Impossible," he said, backing up.

"What?"

Josu was taken aback. He had never had anyone that reacted to him this way, He was normally taken in with great kindness, his abilities made sure of that.

Jace reached a shaking hand into one of his cloak pockets, the one right above his heart where he kept it. His knuckles brushed the embroidery and his heart felt like it was bleeding. The old, folded up photograph of them from when they had been lovers, his Lili planting a kiss on his cheek.

"That's my Liliana," Jace said. "And you were nothing more than a story, someone that she had lost," Jace sputtered. "You were the only person she ever loved," he said. "Before me," he added quietly.

It had to be another language, Jace thought to himself, because the man had only breathed one word.

"_Lilia," _


End file.
